i have a family video recorded on a CD-R which does not play on my Sony 530D DVD/VideoCD/CD player. this players plays all VCDs recorded in the 2.0 version but does not recognise the CD-R. any suggestions as to how to convert the CD-R into a playable version on my DVD player?

-- karthik kumar muthusamy (k_muthusamy@hotmail.com), February 28, 2000

Answers

MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO TRAIL AND ERROR.YOU SHOULD SHOW THEM HOW DVDs ARE BETTER.

-- travecia kings ('foo @bar.com), February 28, 2000.

It comes down to the format in which the data on your CD-R is encoded. The disc needs to be encoded as a VideoCD with a number of MPEG1 encoded tracks. Each one of these tracks should contain a 352x240 or 352x288 MPEG-1 compressed movie with a bit rate of about 1.2 megabits.

-- Alex (foo@bar.com), February 28, 2000.

You should use rewritable CDs. A little bit more expensive than recordable CDs, but recognized by most DVD players (including my Sony DVP-S725D).

-- Roland (rol@myself.com), February 28, 2000.

The only DVD player that will play homemeade Video CD's on a CD_R disk is the Pioneer. Most will play a CD-RW but you need to check them out first.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), February 28, 2000.

"The only DVD player that will play homemeade Video CD's on a CD_R disk is the Pioneer."

Not quite, my Sony DVP-S500D will play the VCD's I create on CD-R. I haven't tried CD-RW yet on it though, but will probably make all future VCD's on CD-RW for future players I get.

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), February 28, 2000.

dear.. that was my problem to and i think the only answer to this problem is the new PIONEER 525 player. i just tried it to day!!!!!

-- mohammed (miknawab@hotmail.com), February 28, 2000.

Try Princo CDR. It is silver on light blue. It works on Apex DVD player. Don't use those greenish-blue dyed disk.

-- choi (choi@canada.com), March 02, 2000.

I have the Sony S530D DVD player also. The following is all done on a MAC: I use Premiere or Final Cut Pro to create the video. The finished product is exported as a Quicktime Movie. I then use Astarte M.Pack to create a "Toast Ready" Video CD. Then drag this newly created file into Adaptec Toast after selecting the Video CD option. I have tried a couple of CD-RW's. Hi-Val does work. Memorex does not. These are the only two I have tried. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

-- Brando (branberg@mac.com), March 03, 2000.

I had a Sony S300 then changed to a S330 (for the DTS out). The S300 can play CD-R' and CD-RW but no DTS. The S330 wouldn't play CD-R's and some CD-RW. I got an answer from Sony that any model number ending with two 00 (ie. CDP-S7700, S7000, S300 etc.) had two lasers and could read all CD-R's and CD-RW's. The best part is that I was told the reasoning behind this is Sony's tremendous stake in Sony Music and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Copy protecting their own product, I knew they wouldn't give us such a great new feature without their reasons.

-- Chris Spencer (diw@home.com), May 01, 2000.

It's good to see Sony finally started making players that would recognize CD-R. It's about time. I am very happy with my Pioneer 525 though and it wasn't very expensive. I don't think the color of the disks has anything to do with as I tried just about everyting before finding this site and discovering that for the longest time that the Pioneer was the only one that would play CD-R and CD-RW

-- Al McCraw (almccraw@ix.netcom.com), May 01, 2000.

Actually, most of the cheap DVD players (between $150 to $200) you can find in Fry's Electronics will play CD-R and CD-RW VCD. And most of those DVD players are made by Taiwanese company.

-- K. Wong (kkuiwong@yahoo.com), May 02, 2000.

If you are from the Uk you can forget all the latest Sony players. I have sold on my DVP725S and DVPS335 and bought a Panasonic 525 which works fine. You can get one from www.techtronics.co.uk which will be modded to play all DVD regions for the same price as Currys/Dixons on the high street (#240 delivered). My advice is to burn a home made VCD and take it to a shop to try out in the machine of your choice before buying. I understand commercial CDs are pressed from a glass plate, not burned with a CD writer. This means they are silver throughout - my Sonys would only play this type.

-- Andy.Terry (Andy.Terry@Btinternet.com), August 02, 2000.

Also in UK - I bought a Philips DVD 711 from Heavenly Upgrades (Leeds) #230 and multi-region. It plays CD-RW and CD-R (including those pale green looking Kodak CD-R's) I have created VCD and SVCD using TMPGEnc - these also play. Nice machine.

-- Phil Pugh (phil@comberbach.freeserve.co.uk), August 04, 2000.